House Republican Joe Walsh, a Tea Party favorite from Illinois, is refusing to attend President Barack Obama’s Sept. 8 jobs speech, according to a Chicago Tribune report.

“I don’t see the point of being a prop for another of the president’s speeches asking for more failed stimulus spending and more subsidies for his pet projects,” he said Thursday.

It’s a joint session, so considering that he is a member of Congress and all it would probably be a good idea for him to be there. Walsh actually said that he believed the president was abusing his power.

“There is no reason for him to call a joint session of Congress,” he said in an interview with MSNBC. “We reserve that for heads of states from dignitaries around the world and presidents in moments in crisis, and monumental moments.”

So, you don’t think the economic crisis is a big deal, Congressman Walsh?

Walsh, who is also a member of the House Small Business Committee, will instead host a small business forum in Illinois. Apparently he doesn’t think the president should be giving another major jobs speech before meeting with more constituents.

“The president needs to stop the speeches, get out of his office and away from all the White House academics and start talking to real people out there,” Walsh said. “They’re the ones who are going to create the jobs, not White House paper-pushers and bureaucrats.”

Maybe he missed Obama’s three-day bus tour, which he spent traveling through the Midwest talking to citizens about the nation’s debt and high unemployment rate at a series of town halls in Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois.

On top of all this, while speaking to a group of voters in Illinois on August 31, Walsh criticized the president and his jobs plan saying this:

“How idiotic is this president?” Walsh said. “I don’t want to be disrespectful, but he’s going to bring forth a jobs plan next week. Think about that for a minute. He’s been in office for three years. He’s destroyed job creation systematically for three years.”

Aside from Walsh’s other criticisms, calling the president of the United States an idiot is pretty disrespectful.

The above editorial is the consensus opinion of the editorial staff listed above.